


Stay Red and Die

by BloodOnUrsuline



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: AU - Season 12 story, Blood Gulch Chronicles, Gen, Happy Ending (in a way), Minor Violence, Moderate/Severe Injury to Main Character, Non-life threatening, Project Freelancer, Sadness, Spoilers for Season 11, red team - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-04
Updated: 2014-02-04
Packaged: 2018-01-11 03:36:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1168192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodOnUrsuline/pseuds/BloodOnUrsuline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sarge wakes up in a haze, pain throughout his body and barely able to breath. But then there is light. And familiar voices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay Red and Die

**Author's Note:**

> This story literally sprung up on me about 30 minutes ago after reading all these things about what Locus would do to his prisoners during the duration of time between capture and Red and Blue teams finding them again. A lot of people talked about how Locus would do the worst to Sarge and Washington because of their connections to their teams. While I've not yet addressed Washington, this story is about Sarge and his Red team. 
> 
> I'm a Blue Team (all the way, baby) but there is something about the trust and the connections these guys have made on Red Team that tugs at the heart strings. 
> 
> This one goes out to all you awesome Reds.

“Sarge! Sarge!” 

His head pounded; he felt like someone got in there with gravity hammer and played a terrible game of with his brains. And they were losing. To themselves. Just one player. 

Whoever played this game was horrible at it...but the game had a name...so did the player...

“Sarge? Can you hear me? Sarge!” Distantly, a dim light started to stream in through his damaged visor. The HUD blinked and blipped but he turned off the damage warnings a long while ago. Between consistent and rock shattering blows to the head and face, the last thing he needed was flashing lights before his already fuzzy vision.

Suddenly the light got much brighter. Artificial light. Helmet lights. He knew UNSC helmet beams from anywhere. “Oh SHIT! Fuck! Simmons! I’ve found him!” The voice changed but remained quite a distance away. Which was strange because through the haze of poor light and scrambled brains, he recognized someone was close to him. His eyes rolled around to watch as it got brighter and brighter, the sound of concrete and metal being moved reaching through his partially crushed audio receptors.

Command was not going to be happy about the state of his armor.

“SARGE! Sarge, we’ve got you! Don’t worry, Sir! We’ll have you out of here in a jiffy!”

“Jiffy? Why are you talking about peanut butter at a time like this, Simmons?!”

“Shut the hell up and keep moving the debris away!” More and more light. The filters for air actually wheezed and when he took another stilted breath (each one was painful and hard to take with a crushed chest piece), the air went from stale and stagnant to cool and refreshing. He sighed ever so slightly as fresh oxygen hit his lungs for the first time in a while. “Sir! Sarge, can you hear me?! We’re getting you out! Just...hold on a minute. GRIF! Grab that end of the beam, we can lift on three! Ready, one...two...”

The voices skipped three but the pressure on his body suddenly went away and a second later, something big clattered to the ground nearby. All the parts of him denied blood suddenly throbbed with the influx of fluids and due to the pain of breathing, he couldn’t even cry out in response to the terrible, terrible pain. “It’s okay, sir! We’ve got all the debris off but we need to check you before we move you! Hold on! Help’s coming,” the voice at his left ear was familiar but panicked.

“Doc! Can we move him?” The other familiar voice, nearby his right, broke twice on the words. It almost irritated him. A faint buzz and flash of pale green light ran over his visor before another voice, vaguely known to him, spoke up.

“Crushed sternum, 5 broken ribs, severe concussion, torn lateral ligament on both legs, broken toes...”

“DOC! FOCUS! Can we move him?” Guy on the left. Familiar, friendly. Had some good laughs with this one. Kind of a kiss ass--?  

“Yes but very, very slowly. If we can get him leaned forward, I can attach the healing pack and start mending him up. It won’t fix everything but his suits in working condition enough to give him pain relief and begin knitting up the major problems. Hold on, let me get a pack off of Caboose.”

“Did they find Wash?” Voice on the right. Much closer. He vaguely felt a hand on his shoulder right there, keeping him steady against the rocks. Dumb idea, he’s against a rock; he’s not going anywhere fast.

“Yeah but he’s pretty bad off too. They had to strip him from the suit; the tech inside was driving him insane and he wouldn’t stop screaming. Caboose, Tucker, and Felix got him to their Warthog just a minute ago. Hold on, I’ll be right back!” Foot falls, fast, moved away and got quieter. 

Silence took over as his respiratory wheezed, allowing him precious oxygen. “His helmet is badly damaged; should we take it off?” 

“I don’t know...what if it...you know...hurts him more?”

“He might not be getting enough oxygen. I mean, he sounds like Darth Vader right now!”

Voice on the left sighed. “Okay, let’s do this together and super super slow. Last thing I want is to...to...”

“Decapitate Sarge?”

“OH MY GOD, GRIF. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?”

“WELL, WE WERE BOTH THINKING IT!”

Sarge felt the corner of his mouth lift; the memories were filtering back in. He knew these voices, this fighting. God, who knew you could miss childish bickering so much? His head rocked a little bit, the mini gravity hammer guy bouncing around even more so. Sweet Jesus, when he got his voice back, he was going give it to these guys. He taught them better than that!

Wait...he did teach them better. He taught these bickering, panicked, scared sounding people.

Instead of a gentle hiss, the helmet croaked and wheezed. It tugged at his skin a little before hands managed to get it up and off his head without taking the actual skull with it. The air, _the air._ It never smelled so sweet or so good. He dragged in a fragmented breath that filled his lungs and pushed the throbbing in his chest into overdrive. He didn’t care. He could breathe again.

“Sarge.” The voice on his left again. This time, much quieter; a hint of a waver in the words. “Sarge, can you hear me?”

He wanted to respond. This one had issues; lots of them. Daddy issues galore. Parents paid him no attention, lavished it on a sibling that made his life a living hell. Ran off to the army and got in early under a special dispensation from his school and the UNSC. Sarge never minded the projection onto him, especially from such a great and loyal soldier. He even forgave Simmons those two defects over to those devious Blues. 

Simmons. His name was Simmons.

“Sarge, please. Please just...say something.” It came out like a child’s plea, that voice on his right. Weak and scared, even more than Simmons. It was horrible to hear Simmons but this? Grif’s voice felt like a sucker punch to the gut. Grif. One of the smartest in the bunch, determined to find a way out of the army to go home, to be with his incredibly mixed up and screwed up family. He was scared of fighting, of aliens, of death. Now, he could actually hear it and it hurt.

He lolled his head back, leaning further into the crushed rocks behind him. Not exactly comfortable but necessary for addressing his troops. Can’t look too weak, even with multiple crushed bones.

Blinking blearily, he took a moment to focus through the haze. Maroon and orange figures stood before him, bathed in sunlight from somewhere above. He watched as the maroon one (it’s Simmons; picked the darkest shade of red he could, always a loyal Red) removed his helmet and then Grif (orange, picked for camouflaging effect) followed suit.

“Sir? Can you hear me?” Simmons asked again. Both of them got closer and though his vision was like staring through glass covered in Vaseline, he could see the red rims of their eyes.

“Sarge?” Grif asked, voice impossibly quieter.

He felt the old itch, that familiar annoyance rise up. Drawing in a breath, he followed the urge and spoke. “Grif,” his wheezed, his lungs feeling like someone was crushing them like a bagpipe, “I always knew you’d screw up everything...even...rescuing me.” He rolled his eyes over to Simmons and continued, “Simmons...you did every...thing right. Good work, my...boy.” Having finished his words, he flexed his fingers and grasped onto  each of their wrists and held as tight as he could. 

A few moments later, Doc returned and helped them affix the med pack to his suit. Sarge pretended to be unconscious as the pain meds sluiced through his body and the unit began to mend his bones. And even as exhaustion took over and he did begin to fall asleep, he still kept his eyes shut. 

He could hear both of his men weeping; he would give the the dignity of not looking at them as they cried. Or let them see the tears welled up in the corner of his eyes.

He was proud of his boys on Red Team.

 


End file.
